Chapter XXI: Trouble for Minnie

As Minnie sat meditating, suddenly the grass about her seemed to move. The long blades bent this way and that, and shook their dew-drops over her.

What could this mean? Had the grass feet? Could it draw its roots up out of the ground and walk?

Why, _she_ was moving! The grass behind lay bowed together in her pathway, and here she was, seated close under an evening primrose, which opened its yellow blossoms so far from the mouse-nest that she had only felt their fragrance when the wind blew.

Presently something like the head of a great snake was stretched out from under her seat. Minnie sprang up at once, and, climbing into the primrose branches, wondered if she were awake or asleep, that such strange things should happen.

Then the snake's head disappeared, and a low voice spoke from under the stone, "Why do you leave me? I live in a pleasanter place than the mouse, and am myself more honest and agreeable. Will not the little woman make me a visit?"

"Why, what's your name, and where did you come from? and are you a stone, or something alive? and is that snake's head a part of you?" said Minnie, half frightened, and half amused.

"What you are so polite as to call a snake's head is my own, and what you call a stone is my shell, and I am a turtle, Miss Minnie," the voice answered, with dignity.

"Pray, don't be angry with me, turtle; I meant no harm. Now the moonlight has come, I can see the beautiful golden stars on your back; and, now my fright is over, I remember what a pleasant ride you took me through the grass."

"You shall have as many such rides as you want, if only you'll come and stay with me by the side of the brook."

Here was the very opportunity Minnie had wished, to find a safer home; but she could not forget her promise to the mouse, and leave the little ones to suffer.

When she told turtle this, he said that she was perfectly right, and, creeping back with his load to the entrance of the nest, and finding the mouse was still away, he left Minnie, promising that by sunrise in the morning he would return for her.

Accustomed as she had long been to the shelter of the elm-leaves, the dampness rising from the ground made Minnie sneeze so violently that the crickets stopped playing to listen. She was glad to go, at last, inside of the nest, and sleep in one of the close little rubbish-rooms.

At daylight she was awakened by a small brown beetle running up and down her arm. Rubbing her eyes, she asked, rather sharply, why he could not let her sleep in peace.

"The turtle wants to know why you don't keep your promises. He has been waiting this half hour, and sends word that it is a shame for you to sleep away the beautiful morning hours."

Minnie sprang to her feet at once, and was following the beetle, when squeak, squeak! ho, hallo! wait a minute, Minnie! came from every room she attempted to pass.

She found that mouse had not kept her promise of coming home, and, sending a message to the turtle, she was obliged to wait and hear a hundred questions and complaints, and settle a hundred disputes between the quarrelsome young ones.

One had pushed the other out of bed; one had trodden on the other's tail; one tickled the other so that he could not sleep; one snored so loud it made another nervous; one had eaten up the other's grain.

As Minnie crept about in this dark, disagreeable place, so full of angry voices, she remembered that lost home of hers, where all was peace and love. She remembered dear Franky, with his rosy cheeks and curly hair,--the good, generous little fellow that he was; and baby Alice, with her large brown eyes; and the kind parents who never went away and forgot _their_ little ones.

Then she rummaged the store-rooms for food; and, not finding enough to satisfy the greedy mice, crept out into the air to see if she could not pick up something for their breakfast.

She saw no turtle. The grass was bent still with his foot-tracks, but he was gone. So Minnie went busily to work picking off seeds and berries, and the honeyed end of clover-blossoms, till she had such a heap that it seemed to her she could never carry it all into the nest.

Then thinking, "Perhaps, if I set the mice at work, it will stop their quarrelling," she called out several of the elder broods.